FFF wrote:
Stop it with the Bekele talk. He's not running 2:01 or 2:00 something. If he even finishes, it might be a 2:06, which is pretty bad these days, you know.
And Kipsang isn't EK either. He's had a marathoner career. It's over.
(And Mutai's 2:05 at NYC is still the mark, and you know it.)
Huge difference between the two. We thought Bekele was done, and then he popped that run in Berlin. But that was 2 years ago. He's had exactly one top level marathon, and his overall peak was a decade ago.
Kipsang might be done, but in 2017 he ran two top class marathons: a 2:03 CR in Tokyo and then a close second in NYC. He's had to drop out of two marathons recently, which is troubling, but there's some evidence that's for real. Namely, he clearly was fit in Berlin last year since he turned around and was 2nd in NY.
So then there's his 2:06 in Berlin just now. Not good at all by his standards, but 2:06 isn't exactly terrible, and it must have been tough being behind Kipchoge the whole race. It's totally reasonable for a 2:03 guy to be a 2:06 guy sometimes. So Kipsang may finally be on his way down, but it's an entirely different matter.